ANOTHER PEST

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 34, 10 February 1927, Page 13

ANOTHER PEST

ENEMY OF PINE TREES

TIMBER RIDDLED BY NEW

BORER

(By Telegraph.--Press Association.) NELSON, 9th February. Dr. Tillyard, chief biologist at the Cawthrdn Institute, gives strong warning that a large timber boring insect, .known as the giant 'Jiomtail (Sirex juvencus) is gaining ground in New Zealand. It was introduced.originally, almost certainly, in consignments of Oregon timber. Eecently a gentleman from Seddon (Marlborough) brought to the Cawthroh Institute some sections of a healthy growing Pinus radiata of considerable size, six to eight inches diameter, badly infested with this insect. The wood had been riddled with the galleries of the larvae, which were attacking growing trees in the plantations. So abundant was the supply of food that Dr. Tillyard found in it male specimens of the pest as large as the largest known. Females from Jiurope are up to about an inch ana ahalf,in length, while the visitor declared he had«.seen females nearly twice as. large..

"Man in his'unwisdom is supplying this insect with the very condition! needed, too restore it to its prehistoric size and dominance by planting all over a new country, with a wonderful climate, immense pure stands of the very wood which it likes best of all viz., Pinus radiata," said Dr. Tilyard. There can be only one conclusion to this. Unless steps are at once taken to check.it within a comparatively short time, the whole of the new forest of Pinus radiata in New Zealand will probably be so heavily infested with giant horntail that the trees will have no commercial value. Every single,person who is in any way interested in the future of Pinus radiata in any part of New Zealand is vitally affected by this problem. "What is really needed is a fund of money large enough to enable an expert entomologist to be sent to Europo and America for at least two years with instructions to spend the wliole of his time studying this problem and locating the supplies of the parasites. "The danger from this insect is so great, judging from the evidence now available, that- a fighting fund of at least £1000 is required immediately in order that a. start can be made in Europe during the coming spring and rummer, so as to ensure that the first supplies of parasites will be received in New Zealand next December or January. There is no mechanical or chem-, ical way of checking the pest, and theonly hope i s that the parasites, when' introduced into New Zealand, will find conditions so much to their taste that .they will go ahead with, as grcai vigour as tho Sirex has done. It is a case of the European earwig over again, only the possibilities of disaster.before us are infinitely greater, as they involve the. possible complete failure of our extensive schemes of planting of Pinus radiata."